Asus ROG Flow X13 Review - Best Compact Gaming Laptop？

Hello, welcome back to a new video. So

today we have the ASUS ROG Flow X13,

13.4-inch convertible gaming laptop, and

I've been using it for about a week now

and I think it's a pretty good laptop.

And it's probably one of the most portable

and compact but at the same time powerful

laptops I have ever used, and we're going

to talk about why I decided to return my

M3 MacBook Pro 14 because I decided to

keep this instead. So first of all, for

the specs, we have a 13.4 65Hz refresh

rate display, very nice display,

and we have an RTX 4050 graphics card,

and we have the CPU which is a Ryzen R9

7940HS, which is basically the equivalent

of an Intel i9 13th generation.

So for the ports of the device, we have an

HDMI port here, we have a headphone jack,

we have an SD microSD card slot reader.

And behind this little rubber thing, some

of you might not know this, it took me a

while to realize that there's actually— if

you pick it, it will come out there.

So you gotta pick it out, and you've

actually got a little USB-C port hidden

there. I thought there was only one USB-C

port on that side, which is where I was

charging it from, and I found it annoying

having to charge it from the right side

because the cable got in the way of my

mouse hand. But now I realize, wait,

there's a USB-C port on the left side as

well, which is really useful. And then

you've got this port is for attaching an

external graphics card. And then on this

side we have another USB-C port and a

USB-A port, which is where I plug in my

wireless gaming mouse. And that's the

power button. So it's really

cool because it kind of looks like an

ultrabook or notebook that you just use

for doing some spreadsheets, writing

emails, but actually it's got really beefy

internals capable of playing AAA modern

games at high or even ultra mode. I played

Red Dead Redemption 2 on ultra, I played

Rainbow Six on ultra, I played Diablo 4 on

ultra, and it was smooth, got about 50 or

60 FPS. And this is also a touchscreen,

so yeah, you can use

your fingers and get fingerprint smudges

all over it if that's what you want to do.

But it's quite good because you can use it

as a tablet. So because it's a

convertible, there's many different modes

with the flexible hinge. Let me show you.

So first minimize that. So we've got

laptop mode obviously, and then you got

flat mode where you can just have

it completely flat, which you might think

What is the point of that? It took me a

while to realize a good way of using flat

mode. So imagine you've got an external

monitor, but you don't want to plug in an

external keyboard. You can use this as the

external keyboard and just flop down the,

the display to get out of the way and then

have your monitor here. So you don't have

to like put this into clamshell mode and

then put it aside and then use the

keyboard. You can just use it like this

and get that screen out of the way. So

that's one way of using flat mode. I don't

really know any other ways of using flat

mode. It doesn't seems super useful.

Maybe there's other ways to use it that

I'm not aware of. And then it's kind of

hard to do this with one hand, so I'm

gonna have to put the phone down.

And you've also got a tent mode, so you

can like prop it up like this, which is

quite useful sometimes if you just want to

watch YouTube or play a game using a

controller. You can get rid of the

keyboard completely and just have a bigger

screen experience. Or you can put it into

reverse tent mode, as I like to call it,

and it places it flat on the keyboard face

like this, and then it props up the screen

like that, and then you can choose the

angle at which you want to view the screen

at. So that's quite good as well if you

only want to use the screen without the

keyboard in the way. And then we also have

tablet mode. So if you close it all the

way back over itself, it will go into

tablet mode And it's got the keyboard on

the back side, so it can be used like a

tablet, although it's a bit bulky, it's a

bit hard to maneuver, and you've got the

keyboard on the back, which is kind of

weird. Also, you can't do high power mode

on this because the intake fans are now on

the inside and blocked, so it doesn't

use much power, otherwise it'll just

overheat and become really hot. So yeah,

you can use it as a tablet like this if

you have a Microsoft Pen or any kind of

pen that works with Windows touchscreens.

You can use it like like an easel

mode, I guess it's also called. You can

use it like an easel and do some artwork

on the screen because it's touchscreen.

Maybe I can open MS Paint. Kind of having

a weird issue here where when I press the

search button, it keeps going back down.

As soon as I press it, it goes back down,

which is kind of annoying because I'm

trying to access Microsoft Paint. Okay, I

finally got Microsoft Paint open. See if I

can do some artwork. With my finger.

Yes, I can just draw straight onto it and

it works pretty well, just like a tablet,

I guess. If you have a pen, it'll be even

better than using your fingers.

Yeah, it's quite good if you want to do

some quick drawing, you can do that. I

think the keyboard is really nice to type

on. The buttons are kind of soft and

slightly clicky when you press it all the

way down, but there's not really a loud

clickiness So

yeah, they're quite nice keys to type on.

I really enjoy this keyboard more than my

MacBook Pro actually. And you got some

useful buttons like you got the volume

down, volume up, mute, you got microphone

mute, you got some fan performance

mode toggle, screenshot, screen

brightness, stuff like that. It's pretty

useful. And the trackpad is also very

good. It's quite big for the laptop size,

and it is a very good trackpad. I find it

very easy to use. And the speaker is

actually pretty good as well. So I'll show

you this video so you can hear what the

speakers sound like. 13.4-inch convertible

laptop from ASUS, or ASUS. It's called the

ASUS ROG Flow X13. And as someone

who owns a MacBook Pro M3 14-inch, I have

to say, after using the 2 devices I find

myself just preferring the ASUS Flow X13

more than the MacBook Pro. And as you can

see, the sound is pretty good straight out

of the box. I didn't do any fiddling, no

settings, no apps. On the MacBook Pro, I

didn't like the way the speakers sounded.

They sounded really boomy and bassy,

which is okay for music, but when you want

to hear someone's voice like in a video,

it's not very clear. So for the MacBook,

I had to download some third-party program

to be able to have an equalizer so I could

fiddle with the frequencies of the speaker

so I could get it to sound like how I want

it to sound. But with these built-in

speakers on the ASUS, or the ASUS, it

sounds great, just exactly how I like it.

Not really any bass. I don't really want

bass. Uh, next I'm going to show you

Armory Crate. It is the built-in

pre-installed software from ASUS, and you

can do a lot of cool things with this when

it comes to fan speeds, performance modes.

You know, it's really interesting thing

here called GPU mode, and because there's

2 graphics cards in this thing. You've got

the RTX 4050 graphics card, and you've

also got the integrated Radeon 780M

graphics, which is like the integrated

built-in graphics card for the CPU. And

you can actually switch between the 2

graphics cards depending on what you're

doing. So obviously for gaming, you want

to use the RTX 4050 because that's really

powerful, but then that's going to be very

noisy because it's a very powerful

graphics card. But then when you're just

doing web browsing and watching YouTube,

you can turn off that graphics card and

only use the integrated Radeon 780M

graphics, and that will give you silent

operation. Like right now, we've got 0

RPM on the fans and we've got a nice

temperature of only 39 degrees. So you get

a completely silent operation experience.

Listen.

Yeah,

that's pretty silent. And the way you do

that is by choosing one of these modes.

You've got GPU modes. So Ultimate mode

you're going to be using the RTX 4050

basically all the time. And that's great

if you don't care about the fan noise or

temperature and you just want the fastest

speed, then that's the mode to go for you.

And then you have the standard mode,

which is also known as MS Hybrid,

automatically switches to the discrete

GPU. By the way, the discrete GPU is the

RTX 4050, and it will switch to the

discrete GPU for demanding applications

and use the integrated graphics for other

tasks. So that's like a hybrid way of

using the 2 different graphics cards. And

then you've got Eco mode, which will

discrete— which would disable the discrete

GPU for maximum energy savings, lower

temperatures, and less noise. And it will

only use the integrated Radeon 780M

graphics for basically everything, even

gaming. So you can do some gaming on the

integrated graphics, but it's not going to

be very good. And then the one that's

recommended by ASUS, the Optimized mode,

it's basically the same as the Standard

mode. It's going to use the RTX 4050 for

intensive tasks and then the Radeon 780M

for more basic tasks. But the difference

is, um, that's only when it's plugged in.

When it's on battery power, it's only

going to use the integrated graphics and

it's going to disable the discrete

graphics. So very important to choose the

right mode for you. If you don't like a

lot of noise and you want it on silent

mode, then you go to silent mode. And you

choose Eco mode for the longest battery

life. And you do get quite a long battery

life, like 4 hours on Eco mode. Right now

I'm at 37% battery, it's still saying I've

got like 2 hours 20 minutes. So I reckon

we can get like 4 to 5 hours on Eco mode,

which obviously is not as good as a

MacBook. MacBook could go for like 12

hours on Eco mode, but you know, it's not

a MacBook. MacBook chips and Apple Silicon

is very famous for being very energy

efficient. Unfortunately, the non-Apple

Silicon— can't really say the same for

that. The non-Apple Silicon like AMD,

Intel, they're good for gaming, but

they're not good for longevity and battery

life. So yeah, I'm very happy with this

computer. It's very powerful, very

lightweight, comes in at 1.1 kg. Battery

life is pretty good. The fans do get noisy

when you're gaming, but that's to be

expected from a tiny body like this. The

problem is when you have a tiny body the

fan and the heat does get pretty loud and

does get pretty hot. So you kind of have

to make a trade-off with portability and

size with heat and noise. So yeah, I

really like this laptop more than the

MacBook Pro 14-inch because I can play

games on it and it's cheaper and it's

lighter and it's got better specs than the

MacBook Pro 14-inch. I give this laptop a

6.2 out of 10. Really highly recommend

it, and I don't really know what else I'd

buy if I would refund this and get

something else, I don't even know what I'd

get instead. I'll probably just get this